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David D. Lee

When online outrage torpedoed the latest episode of One‑Punch Man, few saw past the animation flaws. But what followed exposed a creative industry buckling under impossible expectations.
The sixth episode of the long-awaited third season of the Japanese superhero saga – once praised for its sharp humour and kinetic style – stumbled onto screens under the weight of its own hype in October.
Viewers flooded social media with complaints about its uneven pacing and “rushed” storytelling. On reviews database IMDb, the episode’s audience rating collapsed to 1.4, a brutal comedown for a franchise accustomed to critical acclaim that had usually scored between 7.3 and 9.5.
Days later, the show’s director Shinpei Nagai deleted his social media accounts after posting a message that said the backlash had become too much to bear.
“Honestly, this is taking a toll on my mental health, and it only brings negatives to the work, the staff and the original creators,” he wrote in Japanese.
The sudden implosion of goodwill for One-Punch Man rippled far beyond its immediate fandom. For many inside Japan and South Korea’s creative circles, the uproar captured how social media scrutiny, industrial workloads and fan expectations are converging into a near-unliveable pressure cooker.

Built on burnout
Creative fatigue is inevitable in long-running projects, according to Kim So-won, a research professor at South Korea’s Kyung Hee University who studies the region’s comic industries.
“There are limits in coming up with ideas for a series if only one person is in charge,” she told This Week in Asia, adding that keeping ideas fresh was the real challenge.
Those demands have only intensified as anime and webtoons – the name for South Korea’s digital comics – have evolved into global cultural exports worth billions.
Yet behind the screens, many artists describe an emotional and physical grind that few outsiders see.
In Japan, where manga and anime are pillars of soft power, production cycles can stretch over years while budgets thin and deadlines shrink.
One‑Punch Man, whose first season debuted a decade ago, has switched studios and directors multiple times, producing noticeable stylistic shifts and production challenges. The six-year hiatus between seasons two and three supercharged fan expectations and left little margin for error when the new episodes resumed.

“There’s immense pressure on the artists to come up with new material that satisfies the fan base,” said Yang Ji-hoon, an associate research fellow at the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute.
“The rate of success is low, while disappointment from fans that comes after is tremendous.”
South Korea’s webtoon industry faces similar strains. Valued at about 2 trillion won (US$1.36 billion), the sector has become a cornerstone of K-culture exports. Platforms such as Naver and Kakao are investing aggressively overseas, from Marvel collaborations to Star Wars tie-ins for US audiences.
But rapid growth has taken its toll. Artists report working an average of nearly six days a week, often for more than nine hours a day. Roughly one in 10 said they had faced copyright disputes, a survey last year by South Korea’s culture ministry found.
A 2024 white paper by the government’s Korea Creative Content Agency found that while the webtoon market had expanded, average annual artist earnings fell by more than 22 million won (US$15,000).

The dopamine war
Veteran webtoonist Kwak Baek-soo, creator of Gaus Electronics and other hit titles, said conditions had improved since a wave of protests a decade ago, with new contracts giving artists a larger share of digital royalties – as much as 50 per cent in some cases, compared with about 10 per cent for many Japanese manga creators.
Yet he warned that competition for studio jobs had never been fiercer.
“It’s hard to get a job in these studios these days,” Kwak said. “On top of employment struggles, we have to compete with short reels and YouTube, which I think is at an advantage when providing a shot of dopamine to audiences.”
Feeding the relentless attention economy has deep human consequences. Last year’s suicide of manga artist Hinako Ashihara, who days earlier had bitterly criticised a television adaptation of her work Sexy Tanaka-san, exposed the darker side of Japan’s creative hierarchy.
There’s immense pressure on the artists to come up with new material that satisfies the fan base
Yang Ji-hoon, cultural policy researcher
Fellow artists and industry observers said her death reflected a wider sense of exhaustion and invisibility among creators who felt squeezed by commercialisation. In South Korea, a recent study on working conditions in the industry found that artists regularly faced “high labour intensity, limited job discretion and a notable prevalence of depressive symptoms”.
“In the industry, there’s a perception that being a manga artist is a gruelling occupation with long work hours and low wages,” said Kim of Kyung Hee University. “And there is no guarantee that you will become a famous artist.”
As anime and webtoons become ever more mainstream, they carry with them a paradox that no algorithm can resolve: the more connected fans and creators feel, the more exposed the creative process and its human limits become.
If you have suicidal thoughts or know someone who is experiencing them, help is available. In Hong Kong, you can dial 18111 for the government-run Mental Health Support Hotline. You can also call +852 2896 0000 for The Samaritans or +852 2382 0000 for Suicide Prevention Services. In the US, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For a list of other nations’ helplines, see this page.


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One-Punch Man backlash exposes cracks in Japan and South Korea’s soft power

A still from Japanese superhero saga One-Punch Man. The latest episode garnered complaints about its uneven pacing and “rushed” storytelling. Photo: Netflix

A scene from One-Punch Man. The show’s director Shinpei Nagai deleted his social media accounts after posting a message that said the recent backlash had become too much to bear. Photo: Netflix

A Japanese subculture store in Hongdae, South Korea. Anime and webtoons have evolved into global cultural exports worth billions. Photo: David D Lee

Kwak Baek-soo, creator of the popular webtoon series “Gaus Electronics” and other hit titles. Photo: David D Lee

Apple of their eye: why South Korea’s Gen Z want American brands

A woman looks at an Apple iPhone at a shop in Seoul. Photo: AFP

A man walks past an advertisement at a Samsung store in Seoul, South Korea, in July. Photo: AFP

Tourists and locals walk though the Hongdae neighbourhood of Seoul at night. Photo: Shutterstock

A woman wearing a cap with the US presidential seal and the numbers “45” and “47” on it speaks on a phone at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, last month. Photo: Reuters

US and South Korean soldiers take part in joint joint military training in Yeoju, South Korea, in August. Photo: Reuters

Downtown Los Angeles. Academics say young South Koreans associate iPhones with “freedom” and a Californian lifestyle. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

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Gwenaelle Storne decided to move long-term to Seoul after marrying her South Korean husband in 2023. Photo: David D Lee

People walk across a road in Seoul in April. South Korea’s working-age population is forecast to halve by 2070. Photo: AFP

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In South Korea, outrage over student-teacher ‘romance’ forces K-drama off the air

A student gets help from teacher in class. One of the most forceful condemnations of the proposed drama came from South Korea’s largest teaching union. Photo: Shutterstock

An advert for the webtoon “The Elementary School Student I Love”. Photo: Handout

A pupil gets help from teacher in class. One of the most forceful condemnations of the proposed drama came from South Korea’s largest teaching union. Photo: Shutterstock

An advert for “The Elementary School Student I Love” webtoon on which the axed drama was based. Photo: Handout

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Behind the multibillion-dollar export boom lies a hidden crisis of low wages, 60-hour work weeks and unliveable pressure on invisible staff


Behind the multibillion-dollar export boom lies a hidden crisis of low wages, 60-hour work weeks and unliveable pressure on invisible staff.


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One-Punch Man backlash exposes cracks in Japan and South Korea’s soft power

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Behind the multibillion-dollar export boom lies a hidden crisis of low wages, 60-hour work weeks and unliveable pressure on invisible staff

Behind the multibillion-dollar export boom lies a hidden crisis of low wages, 60-hour work weeks and unliveable pressure on invisible staff